Amongst those who foresaw the development of flying was the poet Cowper who as long ago as 1783 discussed the possibility and speculated as to how the discovery of the art of flying would ultimately come to be regarded:—
Should the point be carried, and man at last become as familiar with the air as he has long been with the ocean, will it in its consequences prove a mercy, or a judgement? I think, a judgement. First, because if a power to convey himself from place to place, like a bird, would have been good for him, his Maker would have formed him with such a capacity. But he has been a groveller upon the earth for six thousand years, and now at last, when the close of this present state of things approaches, begins to exalt himself above it. So much the worse for him. Like a truant schoolboy, he breaks his bounds, and will have reason to repent of his presumption. Secondly, I think it will prove a judgement, because with the exercise of very little foresight, it is easy to prognosticate a thousand evils which the project must necessarily bring after it; amounting at last to the confusion of all order, the annihilation of all authority, with dangers both to property and person, and impunity to the offenders. Were I an absolute legislator, I would therefore make it death for a man to be con-viered of flying, the moment he could be caught: and to bring him down from his latitudes by a bullet sent through his head or his carriage. should be no murder. Philosophers would call me a Vandal; the scholar would say that, had it not been for me, the fable of Daedalus would have been realized; and historians would load my memory with reproaches of phlegm, and stupidity, and oppression; but in the meantime the world would go on quietly, and if it enjoyed less liberty, would at least be more secure.'
And now mankind asks whether after all it is not a judgment instead of the mercy Cowper suggested it might just as well be. There are undoubtedly those who are impressed by the swiftness with which mankind can travel all over the globe since aviation first commenced, and will seek to show that the convenience which the aeroplane has proved to be more than justifies its existence. But there is that evil genius of mankind which quickly recognized the aeroplane as a most potent weapon for doing harm, and more energy has been devoted to making the machine an efficient weapon of warfare than to any other recent discovery. As a pursuit of peacetime aviation has much to be said for it, but in war it has become a horrible weapon though fortunately not quite so destructive as it was at first feared it might be.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.